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St. Louis Flying Club Newsletter - 30 November 2021 |
From The President - By Steve
Dear Members,
I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving with family and friends. In addition to the holiday a lot went on last month. Per the by-laws we revalued the airplanes and saw another big jump in hull values. Mike Piccirilli has been involved in used aircraft sales for years and did a detailed assessment of the planes using market comps and came up with what the officers believe is a fair market value for our planes. The result was a small increase in the Cessna and larger increases in the Arrow and the RV.
- C-172M - Oct Spreadsheet: $117,293, Now $120,000; + $2,707 (+ 2.3%)
- Arrow - Oct Spreadsheet: $107,810, Now $126,000; + $18,190 (+ 16.9%)
- RV-7 - Oct Spreadsheet: $95,375, Now $110,000; + $14,625 (+ 15.3%)
The result is an increase in share values and no doubt an increase in our insurance rates next January. The insurance coverage will stay the same until January when we will get quotes based on the new values plus 10% to cover acquisition costs.
Congratulations to TJ Smyka for completing his instrument rating, Mike Mahoney for getting his instrument and multi-engine instructor ratings, and Jason Watt for finishing his checkout in the RV.
Tim Volk was in town this week with a beautiful RV-9A he just purchased. With a new airplane and moving out of state, Tim is reluctantly leaving the club. We have a number of qualified applicants and I will get one out to you for a vote shortly. We are sad to see Tim go and wish him all the best.
Safe flying!
Steve
Treasurer's Report - by T.J
BILLING STATEMENT
General Comments:
- Welcome Jason Watt to the club!
- Don’t hesitate to call with questions.
- Rate per Hour – The cost of fuel as well as increases in other costs have necessitated the increase in rate per hour for each of the aircraft. A full discussion is at the bottom of the finance statement, and while we are disappointed in the need to raise rates, it is a function of math.
- On a personal note, I had the privilege to take N20843 down to Dallas to train for my instrument. At a flight school that bills around 12,000 flight hours per year, in aircraft from all over the country, I was amazed at the “oohing and aahing” at our Cessna 172; both by the maintenance staff and flight instructors. Thanks to the membership for supporting the improvements and John and Larry for all the work!
BALANCE SHEET
Significant Discussions:
- Avionics Improvement - Again we sold items so we’ve made nice progress in the avionics fund.
- Maintenance Funds - All the maintenance funds are adequate and healthy relative to our spend rate over the past 12 months.
- Overall Cash - Cash is sufficient to operate into the foreseeable future.
- Aircraft Values - As discussed at the meeting, and stated in last month’s statement, we revalued our aircraft on 11/15. Due to significant inflation flowing through the market, we experienced a large increase in the value of our aircraft; more than $30,000.
- Member Share Value – Our member share value now stands at $16,912.
DUES
Our current dues allocation is as follows:
Rate Per Hour
Club – We are making changes to aircraft rate per hour as follows:
RV
- Fuel – The cost per gallon is a stated rate that we get from TacAir. We need to change the burn per hour as what we are showing as the new amount is the actual amount over the past 18 months. This is a simple calculation of total fuel purchased for the plane divided by hours. We’ve long said that the burn would go up as the plane was used for more travel and less repeated landings; and that is what we are seeing here. When we first purchased the plane, and had a bunch of people getting checked out, the burn was extremely low and we held it artificially high. The amount shown should materially hold for some time.
- Engine Fund – We made some tweaks to the overhaul estimate, but nothing significant.
- Maintenance – This is a plug number (it changes each month as the fuel cost changes) to get to an even rate per hour. While the maintenance fund is sufficient, I would not classify it as “overflowing”.
- Conclusion – We need to increase the rate per hour on the RV from $80 to $90.
Cessna
- Fuel – Again, this is a simple calculation of fuel purchased over 18 months divided by hours flown. Given there are so many factors that can influence burn over time, we’re not concerned with the 3.6% increase.
- Engine Fund – While the $6 per hour increase seems significant, note that there are only 94 hours remaining to TBO. So, any changes are exacerbated by the short timeframe. Historically we have held this number on the low side because we were confident we would make it well past TBO. So, it makes sense to pick a number and run that until the engine needs to be replaced. Also, we are changing the Cessna rate proportionate to the RV rate and as such, an increase here is not unreasonable.
- Maintenance – Again, this is a plug number and same with the RV, the maintenance fund is sufficient, not necessarily overflowing.
- Conclusion – We need to increase the rate per hour on the Cessna from $85 to $95.
Arrow
- Fuel – Same with the Cessna, we can’t pinpoint why the fuel burn has improved since the last review and again, this is a simple calculation of fuel purchased over 18 months divided by hours flown.
- Engine Fund – Held the same.
- Maintenance – Increased but also, it is a plug. With the improved fuel burn and the flat engine fund, this is done to raise the overall Arrow rate in a reasonable amount relative to the other aircraft.
- Conclusion – We should increase the rate per hour $5, from $100 to $105
Maintenance - by John 
N202CR RV-7A
- No Maintenance Actions this month -
N20843 Cessna 172M
- Engine Heater plug - On 26 November, Pic reported that the Cessna engine heater control would show the engine heater on but there were 0 Watts being used. When he got to the plane, the the extension cord was plugged into the Cessna and the power was on but the engine was not hot. Larry and I trouble shot the issue to the plug in the Cessna. With multiple years of use, the wires started to pull out of the back of the plug causing intermittent operation of the heater. We spliced in a new cord/plug on the Cessna engine heater wiring and secured the plug to the baffling with a clamp. The plug now stays clamped in place and you just need to insert and remove the extension cord.
- G5 Intermittent Start - We have had a couple cases recently where the Cessna G5 HSI has failed to come on automatically when the master switch is turned on. If any of the G5s fail to come on automatically, Press and hold the power button on the G5 for 10 seconds and it should turn on.
N2242N Piper Arrow IV
- Landing gear dump valve - Mike Mahoney was flying the Arrow to Arkansas on 16 November and had a gear issue just after leaving KSUS. He took off and raised the gear normally and when he reached cruising altitude, he turned off the emergency gear override. A few seconds later, the red gear unsafe light come on and the gear comes down with 3 green lights even thought the gear switch was in the up position. He tried raising the gear again and it came up but after reaching the up position, the gear slowly came down again. Not wanting to fly all the way to Arkansas with the gear down in a headwind, Mike turned around and landed normally at KSUS. The problem was traced to a failed O-Ring in the Landing gear dump valve. New O-Rings were installed in the dump valve on November 18th and after reinstallation back in the plane, the landing gear was retracted/extended 5 times on jacks with no issues or leakage. The Arrow was test flown on 19 November and the auto gear extend speed was adjusted to to 95 KTS and the Arrow was returned to service.
Copyright © 2018, St. Louis Flying Club, All rights reserved. Last updated November 2021
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